Our first rover is not too complicated, we consider it to be a base for bigger projects. It is made from the following elements:

Dagu Wild Thumper 4WD chassis

2 x IBT-3 amplifier

STM32F3 Discovery microcontroller

Raspberry Pi

The rover can be controlled in multiple ways: it has a web interface, a phone interface, and it can also be driven with a Logitech F310 controller. In the latter case it has 4 different speeds, and can be controlled in two modes. In car mode the driver uses one joystick, in tank mode the driver has to use both joysticks to drive the left and right side separately. Tank mode lets the driver maneuver more precisely, but it’s also harder.

The software is based on ROS, 3 own nodes are doing the work, they are all written in Python. STM32 and RasPi are connected via UART with a custom protocol.